African swine fever being tackled in Ukraine, February 2018 African swine fever being tackled in Ukraine, February 2018

01 February, 2018

With the help of new equipment and training, the
Ukrainian pork sector is taking further steps to enhance its monitoring and
containment of African swine fever
(ASF).

In recent years, ASF – a deadly swine disease not
transmittable to humans – has put the Ukrainian pork sector at risk, and with
it the food security and livelihoods of many within the country. Since 2012,
there have been 323 registered outbreaks of the disease.

The spread of ASF in Ukraine has already led to serious
socio-economic consequences; while the country has taken steps to eradicate the
disease, domestic meat markets are being negatively affected.

The extent of the spread of ASF in Ukraine remains
uncertain due to the limited capacities of the official Ukrainian veterinary
services to quickly identify and confirm the disease. According to expert
forecasts, the negative impact of its spread in Ukraine is likely to deepen if
the disease is not properly and quickly controlled, which would further
increase risks for pork farmers and processors.

The power of detection

The project African swine fever: risk
awareness raising and risk mitigation in Ukraine has been implemented
in Ukraine since 2015 by the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (EBRD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations (FAO), together with the State Service
for Food Security and Consumer Protection and the Ukrainian Association of Pig
Breeders.

Today, as part of the second phase of the project, the
EBRD and FAO transferred state-of-the-art equipment to Ukrainian laboratories, enhancing the capability of the
Ukrainian veterinary service to conduct timely and accurate ASF testing. The
transfer took place during a meeting at the State Research Institute for
Laboratory Diagnostics, Veterinary and Sanitary Expertise.

“Fighting African swine fever starts with appropriate
disease surveillance at the public level and investments in better biosecurity
at the private company level,” says Lesya Kuzmenko, Associate Director, Senior
Banker at the EBRD. “The joint FAO-EBRD project has taken practical steps to
deliver state-of-the-art equipment and training to allow the Ukrainian
government to enhance its ASF surveillance capacity. EBRD is ready to further
support pig-sector development and invest in companies with proper biosecurity
and quality standards," she added.

The new equipment, which will be used to carry out
real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing – the only reliable method
to diagnose ASF, will allow the state laboratories in Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy, and
Mykolaiv to contribute to the successful surveillance and early detection of ASF.
It will also help to mitigate the risk of ASF by improving local laboratory
capacity and knowledge on ASF diagnostics, monitoring and control.

Education as a
weapon in fighting ASF

Although there are 11 universities that train
veterinary medicine doctors in Ukraine, there has been a lack of equipment and training
to tackle ASF, hindering timely disease identification and monitoring.

The project though, builds links between the
participating state laboratories and agricultural universities in Odessa, Sumy
and Zhytomyr in sharing knowledge on diagnostics methods, and the PCR equipment
transferred today will soon be available to staff and students of veterinary
faculties of these universities.

"Today, African Swine Fever represents the most
critical threat to the development of the Ukrainian pork sector,” said Dmitry
Prikhodko, FAO Investment Centre economist who is heading the project. “But
when the private sector and the state partner with science and education, we
have a great chance to fight this and other animal diseases, reducing the risk for
farmers, processors and sector investors."

A complex
vision

At the beginning of 2018, the pig population in
Ukraine was estimated at almost 6.1 million. A high proportion are held by
households and smallholder farms, which are more likely to experience
challenges in adopting high biosecurity measures. As such, the Ukrainian pork
industry remains vulnerable to epizootic outbreaks.

Ukrainians are heavily reliant on pork as a source of animal
protein – it accounts for 36 percent of the meat consumed in Ukraine – and small-scale
pork production provides important income for rural populations.

The success of the campaign against ASF will largely depend
on further complementary measures and effective disease surveillance, such as awareness
raising among households – allowing producers to substitute pigs with other
animals, or shifting from animal husbandry to other kinds of farming such as the production of high-value crops, and the
implementation of social programs to offset household losses.

Ultimately, the project will help to provide the
required laboratory support for rapid diagnoses, which in combination with
other measures will allow for the early detection and eradication of the
disease.